Loverly's SHOW N TELL:Grandparents restoration

[Loverly]

Hey Guys,
My mom handed me this photo while at her house last week. This before and after is the only nice portrait of her parents that she has and of course they are dead and gone. She had it out for years and when she noticed it starting to fade she had to put it away so I brought them back to life so to speak and will have it printed out for us soon. It sure felt nice to be able to fix such an important photo for my very own family!

Hugs,
Loverly

P.S. Yes, I see the band around the photo where it faded but it will be fine once reframed so I didn't crop it or mess with it.

[MBChamberlain]

Loverly,

Very nice job. One little thing, the skin is a little two magenta, try ballancing it out with a little less magenta and a little more yellow.

Excellent job,

Michael

[Kraellin]

hi loverly,

you did an excellent job!

did you colorize this or simply bring back old colors? and is this the original color of the background?

one first impression i get is that there's a lot of blue in the picture and because she is wearing blue and surrounded by blue, there seemed to be a bit of a blue cast in her face. i havent the time to call up psp right now and check this, so it may just be one of those side by side colors affecting other colors in apparency things and not really be a cast at all. i'll check it later though. so, she could stand to have a tiny bit more red or light yellow in her face, i would think. but again, this may just be an apparency and not real at all.

again, an excellent job! i'm sure your parents will love it

Craig

[Loverly]

Hey Craig and Michael!
Thanks!
I did not colorize it. I just brought back the original colors. The background was blue. I think it is a bit on the blue side too but it was so far on the green side that I was trying to stay away from yellow and green and keep her more pink looking. I agree she may be a bit blue and just wanted to see if anyone else thought so too. Guess I will work on it a bit more!

Loverly

[bartist]

Hi Loverly,

Nice job on Gma & Gpa. I have to agree with "too much light blue". I put together a quick light & a quick dark background using different colors. I hope you don't mind. I didn't spend any time on cleanup, I just wanted to try it by changing the background color.

regards,
bartist

[Loverly]

Ok guys,
I took out the magenta and added a bit more yellow. How's that?

Bartist my mom did mentioned that the too much blue wouldn't go well with her bedroom so it did cross my mind to change the background. lol Helps that you showed me it does look a bit better with a different color!

Thanks guys!
Loverly

[Cameraken]

Loverly

I hope you don’t mind me having a play with this, But I just thought that they didn’t look ‘Together’.

Ken

[Loverly]

Ken,
My grandparents didn't get along so well so maybe they didn't want to sit close together! LOL

Looks a bit better though with them close together but I have seen this picture of them since I was 5 years old this way so don't think I want to switch them around now.

Loverly

[Kraellin]

loverly,

ok, that looks much better to me. no more blue cast to her face. i'd still think about changing that blue background though. the blue of the background and the blue of her sweater are almost blending.

and on bartist's composite, i like the lower right one most. the one with the reddish brown tends to make him look too brown.

very nice job of restoring the colors. i would have sworn you would have had to colorize a bit. so, very well done!

Craig

[Loverly]

Okie,
Here is the photo with a new soft background. If I went to dark then I would have had to mess with the blue in the hair and all that so I made it easy on myself.

Let's see if you keen eyes will pass this one yet!

Loverly

[Kraellin]

ok, you're going to hate me here, but now that you've posted a larger size shot, there's still too much blue in her face. and his face is a bit too brown; not much though. and i think his suit has too much red. his shirt doesnt quite look right either, but that's hard to say for sure.

i DO like the new background. i think the mix of colors in it suit both folks now. her eyes look fine, lips too. both hairs look good.

his eyes could maybe be sharpened just a tiny bit.

also, i'm trying something here, if you're willing, that i've not done before. i did a few things to your image. i'd like YOU to critique it and then modify it how you think it shld be. this pic is not necessarily what i think your final shld be like. so, just critique it or fix it as a critique....again, if you're willing

Craig

[Caitlin]

Craig, I guess it's a monitor calibration thing (and the fault may well be on my end) but I prefer Loverly's version - the skin colours look a bit sickly and strange to me in your version - a bit orange and 'fake tannish'.

[Loverly]

TAN IN A CAN!

Craig,
There is a reason for the skin tone difference. My grandpa LOVED to fish and he was also a truck driver so he was out in the sun all the time vs my grandma who always wore a hat on the boat when they went out fishing.
At least you tried! Thanks for that!

I'll keep working on the blue skin though.

Loverly

[kschulz]

Great job, Loverly! Your last version really looks great - especially considering what you had to start with! I especially like how you restored some crispness to the picture, but without over-sharpening.

Excellent - thanks for sharing

- Kurt

[Loverly]

Kurt,
Thanks! I am very eager to get it printed out. It is very exciting to see my 2 years hard work pay off with this family photo! How fun is that? My mom has lots more where that one came from! Looks like I have a BIG project.

My next one is of me at 1 month old with my brother. I'll leave it here tonight so you can all have a look at it and deal with it tomorrow!

Loverly

[Caitlin]

Had a very quick go at your brother and you Loverly - Basic levels, curves, and a bit of colour adjustment (reducing the red). To balance the dark side with the boy, and the bright side with the baby used a gradient set to soft light, and a bit of heal and stamp repair.

[Kraellin]

ok, maybe i shld have explained more about the reason for my post. it was NOT meant to be right. it was meant to be wrong. i did this on purpose and wanted you to critique it to 'get another view' on your own image. i guess it backfired

Craig

[Loverly]

Craig,
I did get a nice giggle from it! LOL

Grandma with a tan! hee hee
Loverly

[Loverly]

Here is the photo all fixed up.

I used the levels to take the yellow out of the photo. That seems to work great.
Then I used some hue/saturation masks to help out with discolor. Cloning to take out some of the goop that looked like someone (probably me when I was a kid) spilled something on the photo.

Hugs,

Loverly
P.S.My hair was very red when I as born so I didn't want you to think that was a mistake in color

[kschulz]

Loverly,

Your picture is looking good! I'd like to offer a tip on a simple technique to eliminate stains on large, mono-toned areas, quickly and easily.

There is quite a bit of yellowing, which is especially noticeable in the lighter areas. In the attached example, I selected the white cover behind you on the couch, then used Desaturate (Shft-Ctrl-U). Presto! Yellow stain gone! If the result is too "white", you can then use Color Balance or Hue/Sat to add the desired hue back in. In this case, I assume the throw cover is supposed to be white.

I left the rest for you, if you think this helps.

Also, you may want to check the skin values with your eyedropper...looks a tad heavy on the magenta side.

BTW, the yellow stain can be more difficult to see on an LCD display, whereas it is very evident on a CRT monitor. Not sure which you are using...

Great job!

- Kurt

[Loverly]

Kurt,
Thanks! Yes, I am on a LCD screen which might be part of the problem cause it is very difficult to see that yello stuff! I see what you mean after I tilted my screen way back. Looks better though now that you did the lil desatruate trick! I'll have to give it a try in the morning when my eyes are fresher!

Thanks Bunches!

Loverly

[kschulz]

One other thing to keep in mind - it can be very difficult to get true color representation from an LCD display. This may be why others are noticing a blue/magenta cast in these restorations. And, you may not be seeing other member's pics accurately if you're viewing them on your LCD. I had this same problem a while ago and bought a CRT monitor (which I keep calibrated). I was amazed at the difference! I was always very happy with the quality of my LCD display, but the photos look so much better now on the CRT. Now I always run in dual-display mode - with Photoshop running full screen on the CRT.

Unfortunately, unlike a CRT monitor, most consumer grade LCD displays cannot be calibrated for true color presentation.

- Kurt

[Panpan]

I had a try too. I increased saturation and redness of the skins. Babies are not yellow (unless you feed them carrots ). I also increased foreground contrast, taking care not to blow the highlights.

Pierre

[Loverly]

Kurt,
I gave the desaturation a try on the blanket. Also, I took out a bit of the magenta. Seems to be looking a bit better and almost ready to print?


Pierre, Thanks for trying and you too Caitlin!

Loverly

[Loverly]

Here is a pick that I used Heyrads techniques on that he gave out in the business classified forum. The photo is only from a lil point and shoot 4 pix minolta so the quality isn't that great to start with but his technique worked great and solved the dark like problems on this poorly lit photo. The photographer sure was happy with it! Give it a try you will like it! Thanks Heyrad!
Loverly

After I remove the pimples and do light spotting on an image, I create a layer set and call it "D&B". In that layer set I create(in this order from bottom to top) adjustment layers... Curve(LIGHTEN), Curve(DARKEN),HUE(DESAT),CURVE(CONTRAST). On the LIGHTEN curve, I lighten the mids and fill the layer with black to hide. With this layer, I'll paint with white at about 1-5% depending to lighten dark spots on the skin. on the DARKEN curve I darken the mids and fill with black as well so that I can use this to darken light spots on the skin-- the goal here is to even out the skin tones. The HUE layer is used to desaturate the image. Lord knows we get tired of looking at a monitor. Desaturating helps my eyes when I'm working on fine detail. The CONTRAST curve is helpful to display the dark/light spots better-- again for my old eyes... I select a point on the CONTRAST curve that represents the dark/light spotting of the skin and I pump an S curve in it to bring out the contrast so I can see it better... After zooming in to about elevendy billion percent to work on the fine points of the skin, I begin to zoom out and use larger brushes... When I'm finished and happy with the results. I turn off the CONTRAST and HUE curves and VIOLA.... total control. Now you can color adjust your little heart out and not effect the dodging and burning. You've got total control of the dark and light curves and you can easily revisit them with your little paint brush.

[Kraellin]

loverly,

on the pic with the children, select or mask the boy and run a high pass sharpen on him. or, get stroker's lum frequencies plugin (in the software forum) and try that. he seems a bit out of focus (the boy, not stroker ).

Craig

[Loverly]

Ok Craig,
I'll do that before I print!

Thanks,
Loverly